January 20, 2004 - Tuesday
Now that Harry is in Pre-K with a bunch of four-year-olds, we are starting to get the inevitable stream of bathroom talk. The first day I brought Harry to Pre-K a couple of weeks ago, there were two girls sitting together singing some silly little song about their bums and I thought to myself, "oh, geez, here we go with that." And, sure enough, Harry's comedy and silliness now includes a significant dose of "poop," "pooping," "bottom," "bum," and "butt." The only good thing about it is that he's not old enough to get terrible crude yet.

We've tried to be so matter-of-fact about these bodily functions over the last three years hoping to dissuade some of this, but I guess that doesn't really help. Now we've tried to keep our composure during this infiltration of toilet "humor" as to not draw too much attention to it. But, that is definitely easier said than done. The one place we have tried to make a serious stand, a distinction between what is appropriate and what is not, is at the table. The idea is that since we discourage a lot of other childish behavior at the table, also discouraging bathroom talk there shouldn't really call too much attention to it directly. At least that's the rationale.


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